Thursday, June 28, 2007

How far will our legislators go to look tough on immigration? Senator Lindsey Graham has taken up the cudgel. The Republican from South Carolina has tacked an amendment on the most current incarnation of the immigration bill that would impose mandatory detention for all people who overstay their visas.

Aren’t our jails already overcrowded? Wouldn’t this put working men and women of all ages in the same cells with hardened criminals? Not his problem. We have to look tough. We can’t give amnesty to lawbreakers.

Today we face a situation where millions of desperate people have come to work in our nation ahead of those who are going through the legal process. Is this right? I don’t think so. But we need a smart, workable solution to the problem. Posturing to look tough is not going to help.

My novels in brief

America Libre,House Dividedand Pancho Land imagine a nightmarish, not-too-distant future when tensions between Hispanic separatists and Anglo supremacists ignite an ethnic conflict that leads to an armed insurrection seeking to redraw the borders of the United States. A cautionary tale, The Class H Trilogy is a wake-up call to the dangers of bigotry and extremism in a growing ethnic gulf.

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Could it happen here?

When I began writing America Libre in 2004, some thought the book’s premise was unrealistic. An uprising by Hispanics? The idea seemed far-fetched, they said. Today, the skeptics are no longer so certain. I posed the nightmare scenario of America Libre as a wake up call to the dangers of extremism - on all sides of this explosive issue. Hispanic immigration is a hotly debated topic today. Yet it is only the tip of the iceberg. Over the next decade, three other factors will prove equally significant. READ MORE